The second movie in the Thor franchise, Thor: The Dark World, has smashed its way to the top of the US box office on its first week of opening, raking in $86.1m (£53.8m) from action-hungry cinemagoers.

Thor The Dark World
Chris Hemsworth's Thor Has Helped Marvel Enjoy Yet Another Box Office Champion Movie.

The movie sees Chris Hemsworth's hammer-wielding Thor team up with his evil brother Loki (Tom Hiddlestone) save the Earth from Malekith's (Christopher Ecclestone) even more evil forces.

However, the movie failed to perform to industry predictions, according to BBC News, which predicted that the second Thor instalment would debut with at least $90m (£56m). Thor 2 did see a stronger opening than its predecessor though, which opened with $65.7m (£41m).

Watch The 'Thor: The Dark World' Trailer:

The previous number one movie, teen space action Ender's Game, suffered a fall to fifth this week after it was pushed down by bad-taste comedy Bad Grandpa, kids' animated Free Birds and Robert DeNiro's stag party comedy Last Vegas.

Loki The Dark World
Tom Hiddlestone's Loki Is Forced To Team Up With His Estranged Brother, Thor.

Dave Hollis, executive vice president of distribution for Disney said that Disney would have considered "anything north of $80m (£50m) to be a good result," adding "It's a great start." Worldwide, the movie has nearly become one of the highest grossing November movies of all time with $327m (£204m) although last year's James Bond success, Skyfall, saw higher sales.

Read our Thor: The Dark World reviews round-up here.

Last week's glamorous US premiere also brought the revelation that a third Thor movie was in the works, buoyed by the success of both Thor movies as well as other big Marvel franchises including The Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man and The Hulk.